Uninhibited debate benefits city, press

On election night, I learned how acutely painful it's become for city officials to see continued media coverage of its ethically flawed Convention Center contract — particularly for City Manager Sheryl Sculley.

As Pre-K 4 SA was teetering on the ballot, I asked her what factors she would attribute to its failure, if it failed. (The initiative ended up passing.)

“People are generally just so negative about government, unfortunately,” Sculley responded. “And I have to say that the media contributes to that.”

At La Fonda on Main awaiting election results, we were standing with another member of “the media,” Robert Rivard, publisher of The Rivard Report and former editor of the San Antonio Express-News.

“We tend to report just that which is negative,” Sculley told me. “And if we focus on that which is positive” — leaning over to Rivard, she interjected a “thank you” — “we can do so much more.”

By then, I realized my question about early-childhood education had spawned a lecture on the proper role of the press.

The same day City Council approved the $300 million Convention Center contract, the Express-News published a story I wrote about the contract's handling by then-Deputy City Manager Pat DiGiovanni, who at the time had been discussing terms of his future employment as CEO of a nonprofit with the head of the firm that eventually won the contract. He later was found by the city's ethics board to have violated the ethics rules in helping to award the contract to Hunt-Zachry.

Afterward, I wrote five columns critical of the city's insistence that DiGiovanni hadn't violated the ethics code.

(For his part, Rivard on his website called our coverage “a smear job,” asserting that he's “been around long enough to know the good guys from the bad” — a likely source of Sculley's gratitude.)

“Do you not realize the world sees this?” Sculley continued. “And is that what we want to convey? Yes, we should be self-critical. I'm probably one of the most critical people I know in terms of trying to identify what's wrong. But you can do that without publicizing the fact that we have problems.”

Sculley then brought her contempt into focus, excoriating what “you've done to Pat DiGiovanni.”

“The coverage does not match the infraction,” she said. “It's been so excessive and out of bounds, in my opinion.”

It's safe to assume, then, that Sculley was displeased by another front-page story on the topic in Tuesday's Express-News, “New complaint filed on DiGiovanni.”

Permit me, for a moment, to report on “that which is negative.” These facts, however, concern Michael Cuellar, the man who filed the rambling and largely incoherent new complaint which the city's ethics board will consider next month.

Earlier this year, Cuellar was forced to resign from the San Antonio Fire Department, where he worked as a contract coordinator, according to Fire Chief Charles Hood.

“It was one of those deals where either you quit or we fire you,” Hood said. “Fire Department and civilian staff were threatened by his presence.”

Since he left his job, Cuellar has filed more than 30 open records requests with the city, some verging on harassment. (One, for instance, requests the fingerprint cards of Police Chief William McManus, who has banned him from city buildings.)

In affirming press freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled that “debate on public issues,” which “may well include unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials,” should be “uninhibited, robust and wide-open.”

Sculley should recognize the value of this principle in a democracy, and also recall that the city's ethics board operates with similar liberties and obligations. Art Downey, its chairman, says Cuellar's fraught history with the city would not limit the board's investigation into his allegations.

At the same time, he said, “Everything comes into play once we start hearing the evidence. And we weigh it all.”